ASRA NOMANI: Islamists’ acquainted ‘Triple D’ technique follows Bourbon Avenue terror assault

When Shamsud Din Jabbar, 42, rammed his white Ford F-150 pickup truck into New 12 months’s Eve revelers on Bourbon Avenue in New Orleans’ French Quarter, the leaders at his neighborhood mosque, Masjid Bilal off Adel Highway in Houston, despatched congregants a message to direct FBI inquiries to a special-interest group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and keep away from chatting with the media.

However they didn’t should say something to me. I’ve seen this sample earlier than, as a former Wall Avenue Journal reporter who has investigated Islamic extremism for 23 years — for the reason that brutal homicide  of my colleague and buddy, journalist Daniel Pearl, by Muslim militants in Karachi, for the crime of being an American, a Jew and a grandson of Israel.

NEW ORLEANS TRUCK ATTACK SUSPECT INSPIRED BY ISLAMIC STATE TERRORIST GROUP

First, a radicalized Muslim kills within the identify of Islam. Then, teams like CAIR deploy a technique I name “triple-D”: Denying the crime had something to do with Islam, deflecting with excuses after which demonizing anybody who calls out the terrorism as an “Islamophobe.” 

Certainly, inside 36 hours, CAIR issued a press release, denying the issue of Islamic extremism by claiming it’s been “rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world.” It then deflected from the killer’s non secular radicalization by describing him as a “man with a historical past of drunk driving and spousal abuse.”

East of Houston, in Beaumont, Tex., Fahmee Al-Uqdah, an imam in Jabbar’s hometown, advised a neighborhood TV station, KFDM/Fox 4, that Jabbar’s household requested him to ship a message that “the tragic incident was pushed by hatred and ignorance and Jabbar’s actions don’t mirror the faith of Islam.” Al-Uqdah practices an offshoot of Islam established by a Black American chief, Imam W. Deen Mohammed, the son of Elijah Mohammed, founding father of the Nation of Islam, led right this moment by the virulently antisemitic Louis Farrakhan. It isn’t but clear if Jabbar was a member of the W. Deen Mohammed faculty of Islam.

Lastly, most definitely within the coming days, CAIR officers will demonize anybody who focuses on Jabbar’s non secular radicalization.

As a Muslim feminist and traditional liberal born in India and raised in West Virginia, I co-founded the Muslim Reform Motion in 2015 with courageous Muslims, like authors Zuhdi Jasser and Raheel Raza, to counter this triple-D technique with honesty. Later, in 2022, we co-founded the Readability Coalition with ex-Muslims, like creator Yasmine Mohammed, and allies to problem extremists and advocate for an Islam of girls’s rights, human rights and style. 

‘Ummah..is one physique’

Whereas officers at Masjid Bilal mosque have refused to substantiate that Jabbar worshiped there, it’s only a seven-minute stroll from the trailer dwelling on the 12000 block of Crescent Peak Drive by which he lived previous to the assault. Moreover, Jabbar’s half-brother Abdur Jabbar advised The New York Instances his sibling might have been radicalized lately.

Teams like CAIR deploy a technique I name “triple-D”: Denying the crime had something to do with Islam, deflecting with excuses after which demonizing anybody who calls out the terrorism as an “Islamophobe.”

Certainly, inside his dwelling, Jabbar left a Quran open to verse 111 of Chapter 9, “Surah at-Tawbah,” which I name “the warfare verse,” for its edicts on warfare and guarantees of heaven for Muslims who wage violent jihad. The open web page learn, “They combat in His trigger, and slay and are slain; a promise binding,” in accordance with reporting from The Instances of London.

The sermons supplied at Masjid Bilal are emblematic of a wider, problematic, insular and inflexible interpretation of Islam preached at far too many mosques. Reviewing scores of sermons posted on Masjid Bilal’s Fb web page, I discovered a portrait of the strictest interpretation of Islam, grace hardly to be discovered. Whereas it’s unclear whether or not these sermons influenced Jabbar, they mirror a broader sample that too many keep away from scrutinizing, leaving crucial gaps in understanding.

Imams, or prayer leaders, railed towards the LGBTQ group, deemed adopted youngsters undeserving of the identical standing as organic youngsters, relegated girls to a segregated balcony house and scolded “medical doctors carrying scrubs” for failing to decorate respectfully. The imams preach interpretations of Islam from the strictest colleges of jurisprudence, or madhhab.

Most strikingly, imams delivered sermons absent of sympathy for the Jews massacred by Hamas terrorists in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. As an alternative, there was a relentless deal with the “oppressors” of Palestinians.

On Oct. 9, 2023, within the first video posted after the bloodbath, the imam sat, with fingers folded on his lap, and stated solemnly, “We’re praying for our brothers and sisters in Palestine…Give them help and victory, inshallah,” God keen. There wasn’t a phrase of sympathy for Jews murdered by Hamas.

4 days later, on Oct. 13, the imam repeated a manipulative perception amongst ideologues that “the Muslim ummah,” or group of so-called believers, “is one physique,” and he urged a brand new prayer for “our brothers and sisters in Palestine” and known as to “finish their struggling.”

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On Oct. 15, one other imam on the mosque urged congregants to lift their voices for “our brothers and sisters in Palestine” towards the “plight of Palestinians.” Not a phrase was supplied for the Jews who had been slaughtered. That is the place he additionally railed towards the “LGBTQ” group.

Oct. 7 denial

On Might 31, one more imam spent a lot of his sermon railing towards Israel, saying, “Wherever I’m going, I can not give a chat with out mentioning Falasteen, Gaza and West Financial institution,” utilizing the Arabic phrase for Palestine.

“Each media mainstream channel on this nation put your complete blame, your complete story, that this began simply Oct. 7,” he stated. “Hamas attacked the [sic] Israel. That is 100% not true. This genocide, this aggression is occurring for the previous 75 years.” The basis reason for Oct. 7 was Israel’s “occupation,” “colonization” and “settlement.”

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“If you happen to see evil, begin along with your hand…” he guided the congregation, in a repeat of a hadith, or saying of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. 

Certainly, Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director from the FBI’s counterterrorism division, stated Jabbar joined the Islamic State this summer time and careened onto Bourbon Avenue, hand on the steering wheel, with a perception he was in a “warfare between believers and nonbelievers.”

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